Monday, November 30, 2009

The Suicide of Mike Penner

This is a tough story to write about. A person lived as a man and had a high-profile successful career, then in middle age transitioned to a female gender identity, then quietly transitioned back last year, and then last week committed suicide. It is certainly a tragic story, but so much is left out of news accounts that it is impossible to know what conclusions to draw.

Mike Penner, a longtime Los Angeles Times sportswriter who made headlines in 2007 when he announced that he was transsexual, has died. He was 52.

Penner was pronounced dead Friday evening at Brotman Medical Center in Culver City, a Los Angeles County coroner's official said.

The cause of death has not been determined but was believed to be suicide.

"Mike was a first-rate journalist, a valued member of our staff for 25 years, and we will miss him," Times Editor Russ Stanton said. "He respected our readers a great deal, enough to share with them his very personal journey. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family."

A versatile member of The Times' sports staff, Penner covered the Olympics, the Angels, World Cup soccer, tennis, sports media and a variety of other assignments.

He also spent several years writing a sports column for the paper's Orange County Edition. Since 2008, he was the principal writer for the sports section's "Totally Random" feature.

"Mike was one of the most talented writers I've ever worked with, capable of reporting on any number of topics with great wit and style," sports editor Mike James said. "This is a tragic ending and a difficult time for all of us who knew him." Mike Penner dies at 52; Los Angeles Times sportswriter

There are quotes from friends and colleagues, and a little further down the question of gender identity is discussed.

In April 2007, Penner surprised colleagues and readers with an essay in The Times' Sports section announcing that he was "a transsexual sportswriter."

"It has taken more than 40 years, a million tears and hundreds of hours of soul-searching therapy for me to work up the courage to type those words," he wrote.

Times Associate Editor Randy Harvey, who was the paper's sports editor at the time, said the essay allowed Penner to explain in his own way a decision that "we realized would be a human-interest story and a news story. We didn't want it to be filtered through someone else's lens."

In the essay, Penner said of his transgender decision:

"I gave it as good a fight as I possibly could. I went more than 40 hard rounds with it. Eventually, though, you realize you are only fighting yourself and your happiness and your mental health -- a no-win situation any way you look at it."

Writing as Christine Daniels, Penner started a column for the paper's website in May 2007 called Day in L.A. and a blog about the transition, then in July began writing for the paper again.

He returned to using the Mike Penner byline in October 2008.

It is interesting that the LA Times and other news sources describe him as a male who lived for a few years as a transsexual woman. His male name and masculine pronouns are used, as I am using them here, but the argument could easily be made that Penner's male gender identity was a cover-up, and that in honoring his passing his newspaper should have described him as a female.

The best discussion of the confusion in reporting about Penner's gender identity is found in Amanda Hess's The Sexist blog at the Washington City Paper: Should We Remember Mike Penner or Christine Daniels?. Amanda reviews how Penner's gender identity was handled by various publications, noting that almost all the sports publications used masculine pronouns, while LGBT publications tended to refer to Penner as Christine Daniels and use feminine pronouns. A good point here:

Interestingly, the decision to remember Penner as female in his obituary lies in direct opposition to a longtime cause of the LGBT movement: Ensuring that the mainstream media accurately represent the gender identity of transgender subjects. According to several professional style guidelines, writers are to use the gender identity, name, and pronouns preferred by the subject. So, if Mike goes publicly as Mike, you call him Mike; if Christine goes publicly as Christine, you call her Christine.

Mike had most recently chosen to call himself Mike and refer to himself as a man. Nothing is clear here, but I will go with that, too. Amanda discusses some of the implications of the choice on her blog, and I recommend the discussion.

The question of pronouns and language is an interesting one, but the real question lies in understanding the tragedy that resulted in Mike Penner's suicide. You can imagine the emotional turmoil that must be involved in changing your publicly presented gender in the first place. It is not something you do trivially, it can't be easy, especially for a sportswriter, of all things. Having done that, Penner, now Daniels, became somewhat famous in the LGBT community, and you can imagine -- but you can only imagine, because not much is known -- that her life now had changed dramatically. And then, after adjusting to life as a woman, Penner detransitioned back to a male gender identity, erasing all evidence of Christine Daniels from the public record. And again, we can only imagine going back to your old life as a guy, only now everybody knows that you were a woman last year. You lose your new LGBT friends and your old sportsroom buddies are suspicious of you -- that must be an uncomfortable place to be.

We can't know what motivated Mike Penner to commit suicide, you never know those things really. Maybe it was money, or depression, something that had nothing to do with gender identity. I hope that over the next weeks we will gain some insight into this person's life, his tangled motives, and I hope that some of the discussion will enlighten us about our own attitudes. What is so important about gender? Why do people get so upset about it? Why do some members of society feel it is necessary to enforce conformity to group norms above the autonomy of the individual?

One thing. I have noticed that some news sites and blogs that allow reader comments have had terrible things said. Many of the sites have had to delete comments or turn that feature off altogether. I am going to watch the discussion here, and will delete anything that I consider disrespectful. It is difficult for the majority of us to understand what it's like to feel that you have been assigned to the wrong gender category, and we have no way of knowing how hard it is to tell the world you are changing in a fundamental way. Let's not use this thread to say political things, or to judge someone who makes such a difficult decision. The story here is that someone has chosen to take their own life. There is a lot to talk about, but I want the discussion to remain civil. That doesn't mean you have to approve of someone's decisions, you don't have to take my point of view on anything here, but let us speak decently about important issues and speak respectfully of the dead. I will edit with a heavy hand.

13 Comments:

I can understand wanting to remove hurtful posts. I'd like to suggest though, that we need to be aware that these statements are being made. Another problem is that this gives those on the other side of the issue the chance to claim silencing and censorship.

Is there any chance that this blog's administrators can direct comments to different parts of the page, or different pages? "To see the positive comments, click [THIS] link, and the negative comments are [HERE]", would work.

For spam-commenters, a representative posting can be kept. The commenter gets his voice, and there is room for other like-minded commenters.

Thanks for your suggestions. First, we use a service called Blogger which is versatile but limited. I don't think I could direct comments to two places. Second, one point of the comments section is to allow people with differing perspectives to talk to one another. Finally, I should note that when I as administrator delete a comment I always leave a "This comment deleted by administrator" message visible, so somebody's stuff doesn't just disappear, and usually I write a one-or-two-line note explaining why I deleted it. The exception is spam. If I think someone is advertising a product or posting randomly, I delete it and leave no sign that anything had been there.

“no one who comments here regularly would say anything offensive about a recently deceased individual”

Quite frankly I’m surprised by this assertion. Given the Anonymous tendency to perseverate “sexual deviant” at anyone from the LGBTQ community, and that I seem to recall a discussion of Harvey Milk a few months ago where I don’t believe any particularly respectful comments were made by Anonymi about his person. Granted, Harvey is not RECENTLY deceased, but where does one draw the line? Do you treat a dead trans person with a modicum of dignity for a week after they die? A month? Or a year before they fall back into the “sexual deviant that was promoting the gay agenda” category?

Does Ms. Manners have a rule for “recently deceased transsexual” etiquette?

If you can manage to refrain from referring to a recently deceased transsexual as a “sexual deviant” (the apparent term of choice here recently) for say a month after they’re dead, why not while the person is alive? It’s not like they can complain after they’re dead.

If they deserve a modicum of dignity in death, why not in life?

As for Mike Penner’s de-transition, I think Autumn Sandeen has some enlightening comments over at Pam’s house blend: http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/14291/thinking-about-mike-penner-thinking-again-about-detransitionThere is also a radio show about Mike here (with an audio file): http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2009/11/30/remembering-mike-penner/

You don’t have to. There are several brain studies including dissections and brain scans that indicate transsexuals have brain structures and responses that line up directly with the gender they report.

Here are links to a couple of papers:

“Male-to-Female Transsexuals Show Sex-Atypical Hypothalamus Activation When Smelling Odorous Steroids”:http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/bhm216v1(On the right side of the page is a link to download the full article in .pdf format.)

“Our data reveal a sex-atypical INAH3 volume and neuron number in transsexual male-to-female people to be in the female range, while the values of a female-to-male subject were in the male range. Differences in adult testosterone levels can only partly explain the observed differences in the INAH3 subdivision of transsexual people while estrogen levels do not seem to have an influence. In male-to-female subjects the number of neurons in the INAH3 does not seem to be related to sexual orientation, nor to the onset time of transsexuality, but rather to atypical early female-biased gender. The differences observed between the INAH3 structure, its innervation in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity and its putative connection to the BSTc suggest that these two nuclei, together with the SDN-POA (= intermediate nucleus, = INAH1 and 2) and the SCN (Swaab et al., 1985) are part of a complex network involved in various aspects of sexual behaviour. For the INAH4 subdivision of the uncinate nucleus, the only difference found among the groups was in relation to its shape, which was similar in all genetically male groups studied.”

For a more readable (layman’s) text, one might be interested in the book “Brain Sex: The Real Difference Between Men and Women” ( http://www.amazon.com/Brain-Sex-Difference-Between-Women/dp/0385311834/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259767548&sr=1-1 )

In it they refer to a number of studies, including one in mice where hormones are injected into newborns at a critical time in their brain development. If this is done at the right time, male mice grow up to have female type mating behaviors and female mice have male behaviors despite not having the appropriate genitalia. I have also read that similar studies have been performed in primates, but I don’t recall if it was reported in the “Brain Sex” book or not, and I no longer own the book.

There are of course other studies and books that can be found on the subject. If one is interested, all one has to do is Google.

Anon related:

“it's hard to not feel sorry for this poor confused guy”

The news articles did not report that Mark was either poor or confused, although financial difficulties have been known to lead to stress and depression. Suicide is typically caused by stupidity or severe depression, not confusion. Those that die of stupidity are candidates for the ignoble “Darwin Award”: http://www.darwinawards.com/ One could argue that the death of David Carradine by apparent auto-erotic asphyxiation is “unintentional suicide by sexual deviancy.” However, I would simply lump it into the “suicide by stupidity” category.http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2009/06/11/autopsy-finds-david-carradine-did-commit-suicide/

Until more information becomes available about Mark’s death, including a formal conclusion that it was indeed a suicide, it is irresponsible to draw unsupported conclusions.

(I apologize if this shows up twice, but the first copy appears to have been lost in the ether.)

For a more readable (layman’s) text, one might be interested in the book “Brain Sex: The Real Difference Between Men and Women” ( http://www.amazon.com/Brain-Sex-Difference-Between-Women/dp/0385311834/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259767548&sr=1-1 )

In it they refer to a number of studies, including one in mice where hormones are injected into newborns at a critical time in their brain development. If this is done at the right time, male mice grow up to have female type mating behaviors and female mice have male behaviors despite not having the appropriate genitalia. I have also read that similar studies have been performed in primates, but I don’t recall if it was reported in the “Brain Sex” book or not, and I no longer own the book.

There are of course other studies and books that can be found on the subject. If one is interested, all one has to do is Google.

Anon related:

“it's hard to not feel sorry for this poor confused guy”

The news articles did not report that Mark was either poor or confused, although financial difficulties have been known to lead to stress and depression. Suicide is typically caused by stupidity or severe depression, not confusion. Those that die of stupidity are candidates for the ignoble “Darwin Award”: http://www.darwinawards.com/ One could argue that the death of David Carradine by apparent auto-erotic asphyxiation is “unintentional suicide by sexual deviancy.” However, I would simply lump it into the “suicide by stupidity” category.http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2009/06/11/autopsy-finds-david-carradine-did-commit-suicide/

Until more information becomes available about Mark’s death, including a formal conclusion that it was indeed a suicide, it is irresponsible to draw unsupported conclusions.

Feel free to pooh-pooh scientific studies all you like. It is ultimately self-defeating. Science as it’s implemented by humans isn’t perfect. Every few years news comes out that some scientist mis-reported or misinterpreted results. Remember Cold Fusion? Or the Korean scientist that claimed to achieve cloning? Eventually the truth comes out, one way or another, and it will overwrite the flawed premise or analysis that came before. We do not throw out the entirety of science because of a few bad scientists, any more than the Catholic Church has thrown out all of its priests because of a bunch of pedophiles.

Despite its implementation flaws, the scientific method still has a far better track record on explaining natural phenomenon and predicting future consequences than any of the other time-worn methodologies that currently come to mind: namely simple guessing, palmistry, reading tea leaves, tarot card reading, throwing chicken bones, and religion.

Anon asserted:

“A person who goes from guy to girl back to guy in the space of two years is, indeed, confused.”

“Confusion” is HIGHLY unlikely to be an explanation for Mike’s de-transition or apparent suicide.

From Autumn Sandeen’s piece I referenced earlier:

“I had an appointment with my own therapist, Patricia Wojdowski, L.C.S.W., on Wednesday. While at the appointment, I asked her some questions regarding detransitioning, and asked if I could post her responses at Pam's House Blend.

I actually was kind of surprised at Patricia's answers. Basically, in her long practice with trans clients (she's been involved with studying and treating transsexuals and other gender variant people since the mid-seventies), the single commonality for all of her detransitioning clients has been that external pressures were the impetus. All of her clients who have detransitioned still considered themselves as having a gender identity that didn't match their natal sex, but external pressures -- issues such as inability to find employment, biases and discrimination in the workplace, an inability to find appropriate housing, conflict with friends and/or family, etc. -- are why the RLE is evaluated by the client as unsuccessful, and the client decides to detransition.”

Since Mike was able to keep his job at the LA Times, I am led to suspect that the problems he faced probably had to do with family. Typically for my trans friends, it is issues like divorce, child custody, visitation, and estrangement by large segments of their family. These are the things that either keep one from transition, or force one to de-transition during the Real Life Test, well that and lacking thousands of dollars necessary for surgery.

There are other explanations for de-transition as well which the doctor did not allude to, namely that the client could actually be genderqueer, androgyne, or have another gender identity that doesn’t qualify as fully transsexual. From reading Mike’s coming out letter (I linked to that above) his narrative doesn’t sound like that of the genderqueer folks I’ve listened to. His is decidedly that of a transsexual – genderqueer folks have a distinctly different narrative. One might be tempted to categorize genderqueer folks as “confused” as they tend to ride the boundary between male and female presentation, sometimes leaning more one way than the other. This certainly can be confusing for OTHER people, but if you listen to them talk about their own gender identity, they are quite firm and confident about where they are with it. It’s other people who have the confusion. For some I might apply the adjective “ambivalent” to their gender expression, but not “confused.”